I think you have some great ideas in this. Bidding for off peak power is a pretty efficient means to keep costs down... especially with storage perfected... if storage is perfected. I won’t get into the whole argument about electric cars, recharge rates and range limitations.
One other problem I see with solar and wind is dispersion of the power sources... it takes a large complex grid quite some distance from the point of use to provide this power.
Open markets for power here in Texas have so far kept the price down for consumers who shop. My last rate was about 10 cents / kwh for the last three years. I just renewed for two years at 8.2 cents / kwh... I have a 1,500 kwh/mo minimum threshold to meet to get that rate but for less it is still not bad. My home is total electric save for cook top and water heating which are both propane.
In Oklahoma I pay about 13 cents and it is going up. The Rural Electric Coop just can’t compete.
Power density of both solar and wind are too low to provide very much more power than they do now. Of the two wind is best but believe it or not there are limited locations for wind.
Sustainable base load needs to go to LiFTR type reactor technology. This could bridge into Fusion for a loooong time and that is what it will probably take for Fusion to become reality a loooong time. Even LiFTR is 25 years away in all probabiilty if it were to begin now. Every year we wait to start is another year it will take to finish. These are long term projects and trends. They will never get off the ground witout a national will and initiative such as the one Kennedy began with the space program. Such a program could not only change our future for the better and make us much more competitive it could also provide meaningful jobs and stir the national pride if we have any left at all.
Don’t need the thorium breeder to implement a molten salt reactor program, as 95% of the energy content remains in the fuel bundle assemblies stored in cooling pools. MSR can burn bulk of remaining U235 and actinides content for many-many decades, and reduce the long term storage issues by 98%.